1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a theft protection for an electronic device, in particular an optionally portable computer, a mobile telephone or a PDA, comprising an electrical cable with a coupling connector for coupling to a corresponding coupling connector of the device, and comprising alarm means connected to the cable which are able and adapted to generate an alarm signal in the case the device is stolen.
2. Description of the Related Art
Different types of protection have been proposed for the protection of electronic devices, in particular portable computers, from unlawful theft. Firstly, there are mechanically reinforced cables which are on the one hand attached to a fixed object and on the other engage with a lock in an opening of a lock plate arranged specifically in the device for this purpose. Although the device can hereby be firmly attached to a fixed object in its vicinity, such a solution has the drawback that securing the device is relatively time-consuming and requires a special modification to the device and that, with a sufficiently powerful cutter or other tool, the cable can moreover be broken without this being noticed and the device nevertheless stolen.
In order to avoid this latter in particular, there are also electronic theft protection devices which generate an audible alarm signal as soon as theft of the device is detected. Such an electronic theft protection is for instance known from American patent application US 2005/0073423. The theft protection described therein serves to protect a portable computer and comprises a movement sensor connected to the computer via a universal serial bus. As soon as the movement sensor detects a movement, an alarm report is generated to the computer, on the basis of which a routine loaded into the computer sounds an audible alarm signal via the computer speakers.
Although unnoticed removal of an active device will generally not be possible with such an electronic protection, this protection is also far from perfect. In the first place this known protection requires that the computer is in operation and the (battery) power supply of the portable computer is still sufficient to activate and maintain the alarm. The battery power supply will not infrequently be depleted or the computer will be switched off or in standby mode, in which case the theft protection is not in operation. Furthermore, the working of this known theft protection requires a software routine for this purpose to be loaded into the computer, whereby the protection is only suitable for computer equipment and must moreover be fully compatible with other software loaded therein and with the hardware of the computer.